Do alignments improve the gaming experience?

[Hussar]

Emphasis mine... exactly where did this happen at in the thread... I saw slight variations on the Batman example but I must have missed where there were actually opposite opinions expressed... could you cite this?

Not going to swim that far upthread. But, for one, you've got the "Leaving the villain to die" example, where N'raac has claimed authority of interpretation that only his interpretation is correct. Are you saying you cannot see an alternative interpretation? You've got the "God of Beauty" example where you claimed that ritual scarification is not beauty. Is there no alternative interpretation? Way, way back, Cadence and Celebrim looked at an example and came up with exactly opposite interpretations, one claiming lawful the other claiming chaotic.

Do I need to cite more?

Emphasis mine again... No one in the pro-alignment camp is telling Grog the Destroyer what he has to believe...

No, you're just telling Grog the Destroyer that what he believes is wrong. Yeah, that's not telling someone what they have to believe.

 

[Cadence]

Way, way back, Cadence and Celebrim looked at an example and came up with exactly opposite interpretations, one claiming lawful the other claiming chaotic.

In another thread I think @Celebrim and I agreed it was possible we could both agree on neutral for that one if I explained the set-up right way. I don't remember if we agreed on anything else about it... but I think it was a good demonstration of why simply having two dimensions for alignment necessarily leaves some poorly described cases.

I'm also kind of disappointed that your post #1110 didn't just end the thread. I'm not sure we'll get to another stopping place that's as nice.

Which, if you bring it back around to the original question, I guess i would answer it thusly:

Alignments can improve the gaming experience if you follow a particular play style. For me, who doesn't enjoy that play style, it does not.

 

[N'raac]

In my view it's hard to give an account of right conduct where what is aimed at is not good.

Execution of a convicted criminal, where a society believes in capital punishment. It is not a Good act, yet it seems death to criminals is quite acceptable to LG Paladins. If it is not, they need to revisit their adventuring style.

But that's not the case I've been focusing on. (Nor am I talking about LG vs CG, which has it's own weirdness but is not what I am primarily talking about.)

You have never actually addressed the fact that LG, CG and NG will disagree on many issues, so they cannot all be "right" despite all being "good".

I'm focusing on the case where the PC commits an evil act and thus blots his/her alignment copybook - as a paladin, s/he loses his/her class features; or if not a paladin, let's suppose that the evil act is such as to make him/her change alignment. (And how does s/he know this? Because she casts "Know Alignment" or "Detect X" on herself every morning from her magic sword, or has a cleric henchman cast it, or whatever.)

Any act so evil as to cause, in and of itself, a change of alignment would need to be pretty heinous, which would seem to make its evil pretty obvious.

In this sort of case, the character knows that what s/he did was evil. And how can s/he reasonably dispute that within the gameworld? The metaphysical evidence that s/he acted evilly is irrefutable!

(If the gods are themselves fallible channellers of cosmological good and evil, that just makes things more complex. For instance, if a LG good makes a mistake and judges an action good that is actually evil, does his/her paladin who commits such an act lose status or not? According to the PHB s/he does, in which case the LG good presumably now has to concede that s/he got it wrong!)

You keep ignoring that vast Neutral ground between "good" and "evil". A case just on the cusp between N and E seems likely to be something that would only even be considered in truly dire situations, with some non-Evil motivator. Weren't you the one criticizing us for just tossing out hypotheticals upthread? At least our hypotheticals had an act, not just a "it's a close call the God gets wrong" descriptor.

My personal view is that every player is obviously a "special snowflake" - both in general, as an individual human being entitled to respect and dignity, and as a participant in a creative endeavour who is committing time and effort, and is entitled to commensurate respect and recognition.

"We are all unique individuals - just like everybody else!"

Not going to swim that far upthread. But, for one, you've got the "Leaving the villain to die" example, where N'raac has claimed authority of interpretation that only his interpretation is correct. Are you saying you cannot see an alternative interpretation?

Has someone provided a rules-supported interpretation that this is an Evil act, or a Good one, or are you just assuming there would be disagreement because all GM"s are myopic tyrants out to screw over the PC's ? Might there be a moral or ethical philosophy that would consider leaving R'as to die Good or Evil? I suspect so - [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is the expert. But they aren't the rule book authors, so their views don't change the rules in D&D.

You've got the "God of Beauty" example where you claimed that ritual scarification is not beauty. Is there no alternative interpretation?

That was a non-alignment issue. Given two GM's could come to opposite conclusions on what constitutes beauty, I guess all references to beauty should be struck from the game, correct?

Do I need to cite more?

More than zero? Only if you want to support your case, I suppose.

No, you're just telling Grog the Destroyer that what he believes is wrong. Yeah, that's not telling someone what they have to believe.

What are we saying is "wrong"? That Grog gets to define a universal standard of right and wrong, order and chaos and good and evil? Yes, I think that is wrong. He does not get to dictate the beliefs of others. Neither can anyone dictate his beliefs - being his values, not how they get defined by the rest of the universe.

 

[Imaro]

Not going to swim that far upthread. But, for one, you've got the "Leaving the villain to die" example, where N'raac has claimed authority of interpretation that only his interpretation is correct. Are you saying you cannot see an alternative interpretation? You've got the "God of Beauty" example where you claimed that ritual scarification is not beauty. Is there no alternative interpretation? Way, way back, Cadence and Celebrim looked at an example and came up with exactly opposite interpretations, one claiming lawful the other claiming chaotic.

Do I need to cite more?

Uhm, you kind of do. In the N'raac example I can see alternatives but not one where it is a completely opposite interpretation. As for the "beauty" example... that doesn't concern alignment so is irrelevant to whether people see opposite cases in situations concerning alignment. Finally lawful good and chaotic good are not opposites. the opposite of lawful good would be chaotic evil and the opposite of chaotic good woulds be lawful evil... so I still fail to see where anyone has went total opposite while viewing the same situation in this thread... that is the claim you made.

No, you're just telling Grog the Destroyer that what he believes is wrong. Yeah, that's not telling someone what they have to believe.

Uhm, again... no I'm not I'm telling him whether his action is Lawful Good or something else... whether it was the "right" acton is up to Grog to decide...

 

[Imaro]

In my view it's hard to give an account of right conduct where what is aimed at is not good.

Well in my view right conduct is dependent upon one's goals and if the action allows them to achieve said goals... now whether the conduct and/or goals align with a particular alignment is something totally different than whether the action was right or wrong for the character. Again, perhaps it's your inability to put aside this subjective interpretation of what "right" and "wrong" mean that prevents you from being able to see that for some of us they do not equate to "good" and "evil".

 

[Hussar]

Execution of a convicted criminal, where a society believes in capital punishment. It is not a Good act, yet it seems death to criminals is quite acceptable to LG Paladins. If it is not, they need to revisit their adventuring style

Bingo. You have decided that execution is not a good act. And, taken a step further a paladin who executes someone is committing an evil act.

Which nicely highlights one of the primary issues with alignment. One of the most common actions of a paladin (and let's not forget it's Smite evil, not Give evil a good talking to) is actually evil by the definitions of evil and good in the rules.

But then apparently we can just sweep that away as poor dming. Convenient that. Anything which doesn't fit your playstyle is bad wrongfun and bad gaming.

 

[Cadence]

Bingo. You have decided that execution is not a good act. And, taken a step further a paladin who executes someone is committing an evil act.

Why is not good == evil? Why can't the good do neutral things when needed? (Deciding between the corn flakes or crispix for breakfast? Letting the law part weigh in on whether it's more appropriate to lock up the bad guy, costing money that could feed the poor and allowing him the chance to escape and butcher more people, or execute him?).

Isn't it only the continually being more neutral than good, or the doing of evil, that shifts the alignment over if one is being mechanical about it?

 

[Nagol]

Bingo. You have decided that execution is not a good act. And, taken a step further a paladin who executes someone is committing an evil act.

Which nicely highlights one of the primary issues with alignment. One of the most common actions of a paladin (and let's not forget it's Smite evil, not Give evil a good talking to) is actually evil by the definitions of evil and good in the rules.

But then apparently we can just sweep that away as poor dming. Convenient that. Anything which doesn't fit your playstyle is bad wrongfun and bad gaming.

If execution is not a Good act -- and there is certainly strong evidence in that it does not place an emphasis on preserving life -- it doesn't make it Evil. Execution as punishment for crimes heinous to justify societal outrage is probably a Neutral act.

Lethal combat in self-defence probably (as in a lot of GMs will not view it so) is not a Good act either -- it would fall into Neutral. Lethal combat in opposition of Evil or in defence of Good or innocents would be Good.

Note that paladins can commit pretty much as many Neutral acts as they wish so long as their overall alignment remains LG.

 

[Hussar]

Entering the home of someone and killing them is pretty hard to justify as self defence. Killing someone is pretty difficult to justify as morally neutral.

But this is my point. It doesn't matter what I actually believe. The simple fact that you can make legitimate arguments either way means that there will be disagreements.

Some feel that it is valid for the DM in the context of the game and campaign to tell the player that the player's interpretation is objectively mistaken.

And that's fine for that playstyle.

For me, that would be very unsatisfactory.

 

[Hussar]

Oh, and just so's everyone's on the same page here, Grog the Destroyer is a god, not a PC. I think that got confused a little ways back. So, in that case, the DM is definitely defining Grog's alignment and beliefs.